According to seven-time Grand Slam champion Mats Wilander, the answer is simple: Murray needs to bully his opponents, throw his weight around, and let everyone in the locker room know how hard he is working.

Wilander also believes that Ivan Lendl, Murray’s new coach, is the ideal man to administer that lesson. For it was only through watching Lendl in action that Wilander himself began to appreciate the value of a little basic psychology.

“Ivan wasn’t a great player in the Grand Slams early on, even though he had incredible ability,” said Wilander, who will be commentating for Eurosport throughout the Australian Open. “When I beat him at the French Open in 1982, there was no intimidation coming from his side of the net, he was just throwing me a bone. But by 1983 and ’84 he was beginning to develop that winning attitude.

“Ivan, as part of his confidence-building, wanted to let the whole locker room now how hard he was training and practising. He had a little bit of a bullying mentality: in the early rounds of Grand Slams he would want to go out and kick people’s butts 6-1 6-1, 6-0. Most top players have no interest in doing that but he wanted to rub it in their faces.”

The turning point for Lendl came in 1984, when he and John McEnroe squared off in a famous French Open final. McEnroe — who was on a 42-match winning streak – led by two sets to love, and at one stage stood just five points away from lifting the one trophy that kept eluding him year after year. And then, the unthinkable happened.

“McEnroe was 4-2 up and cruising, then he choked a little bit and Ivan got some fire going,” Wilander said. “Ivan got a bit lucky, because he was weak mentally all the way up to that French Open final. If that hadn’t happened, who knows whether he would have got over the hurdle?

“After that, he played with more confidence, especially on hard courts where there were no bad bounces.

“I’m friends with Ivan, but he’s an unusual guy. I had to stop practising with him because I’d be working on stuff and he would be trying to beat me. He just wanted to kick people’s asses and that’s eventually how he learned to win.”

In Wilander’s view, the Lendl approach is something that other players have emulated, whether consciously or otherwise. Even Novak Djokovic, with his talk of switching to a gluten-free diet, was going through the same process of trying to impress the opposition.

“Anyone who goes on about some kind of diet or training regime, who makes it public knowledge, is usually someone who’s not playing with a great deal of confidence,” Wilander said.

“If you look at Andre Agassi and what he did in the late 1990s, he wasn’t a natural winner, he wasn’t someone who thrived on competition, but he became a fighter through the help of Brad Gilbert and a lot of hard work. He also let everyone know how hard he was training.

“Then look at winners over the years, guys who were born with that competitive streak, people like Rafael Nadal or Lleyton Hewitt or John McEnroe, you don’t hear them talking about how hard they train. Bjorn Borg never spoke about how much he ran or how many push-ups or sit-ups he did.

“It’s just a different way to do it. And I think Lendl can help Andy in that way. It might be a good idea to let people know how hard he works, boast a little bit, and so build up his confidence and his form.”

However much Murray might learn from Lendl, he is unlikely ever to equal his new mentor on the ruthlessness front. Wilander tells a story of an exhibition match they played together in Barcelona where his luggage went missing in transit and he had to use a borrowed Rossignol racket that he had never picked up before.

“We went out to play the match in front of 400 people and Ivan beat me 6-0, 6-0,” Wilander said. “I remember having game point at 0-4 down, and serving to his backhand. I’m thinking, ‘Surely he will give me a game here, hit a ball back that I can volley away,’ but he gets low down and hits an unbelievable passing shot.

“Next morning I get a phone call from his wife Samantha. She says ‘Good morning, Ivan wants to talk to you.’ I think OK, he’s going to apologise.

He says, ‘I’m calling to see if you want to practice,’ and I’m like ‘Come on, Ivan, I don’t have my stuff’. I don’t know if he just doesn’t realise that or if he’s joking around. Either way I don’t give a ---- but it’s typical of the guy.”

British Eurosport & Eurosport HD will broadcast LIVE coverage of the 2012 Australian Open